Yes, Papa, if you don't have good fins for your race board you are wasting your time. The fins are driving the board designs and the board designs are driving the fins designs as well. Right now it is a massive evolution and we will see some amazing performance in Kite racing in the next year.

That is why Curtis of Curtis Fins, the fin guru and I are starting a new/old fin company. We will launch our new web site in the next few weeks.

Basically all of guys who run kiteboard and windsurf board companies have worked with Curtis Hesselgrave. Curtis made most of my fins for my 20 years as a professional windsurfer as well and our relationship goes back to the late 1980's. Curtis is the guy with the most experience....

Right now we are working with World Champion in Kite Course Racing, Sean Farley and female World Champ Steph Bridges and Second in the Worlds Chip Wasson as well as top kite and windsurf shaper, Mike Zajicek of Mike's Lab fame.

It's a fun time to be in the fin design game, and we look forward to making the most high performance fins available to all kiters. We are also working on a new kiteboard fin box similar the the current windsurf "Tuttle" fin box. This new box will be lighter, just as strong and will be adjustable as well.

The sport is growing in so many directions and we are challenged to keep up with the latest developments.

Keep an eye out as we will launch the new web site by the end of the month.....

It will be interesting to see if they can cut the area down eventually, seems like they are getting too big/too many.
A windsurfer with one superlong fin, ok, but a kiteboard with 4?
Good business for you guys I guess...
At some point, it will be too much drag though....

Why put 4 huge fins with enormous drag when you can place on your board : 1 big in the middle -back and 2 "normall" ones on the sites.
My opinion is that you dont need 4 huge fins.

You need 4 or 3 good fins that will make your board work better not make it slower and create problems to your back foot...

To ride/race with so big fins you will need :

1)Perfect physicall condition. (Hulk)
2) Much wider board (that means slower)
3) To accept that you WILL be slower, but maybe you will go a bit better upwind.
4) Accept that you will ride a board that feels like a door (with big keys on it)
5) Accept that your board starts to look like a windsurf board from back 1980 with canga kok fins (or something like that)

I didn't believe that photo - assumed it was photoshopped.
At the moment, I'm just aiming for a lower limit of 10 knots, to use a normal Xbow and a big waveboard with race fins.
I'm waiting for the kites to catch up on the boards before considering race gear.
The 2010 North LTD is a good price for a quad racer, so I hope that will be the going rate for production boards, otherwise they will only be bought by serious racers.